Pacman Nebula NGC281

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During the past few months a major upgrade took place at my observatory. The 400mm telescope was completely rebuilt to accommodate a bigger CCD camera. This camera can be cooled to 50°C below ambient and is based on the ON Semiconductor (formerly KODAK) KAF16200 CCD, a 16Mpixel chip with 6µ pixels. This CCD chip measures 21.6 x 27 mm, so it has more than double the area of the previous 13.5 x 18mm chip, so the observable field has doubled. In order to get optimal results, all 31mm filters have been replaced by 50mm filters, and 7 different filters are available now: L, R, G, B, H-Alpha, O2 and S2. The coma corrector was upgraded from 50mm to 75mm diameter to combat vignetting, and the original 90mm minor axis secondary mirror was replaced by a 120mm version for the same reason. The focuser had to be replaced too, to accept the much bigger coma corrector.

The telescope has grown so heavy now that my old mount struggled with the 50kg+ load, a new friction drive mount (Mesumount 200 MK2) was purchased, it should be able to carry 100kg. First tests show it is tracking very well, 300s integrations without autoguiding at 1800mm focal length are easily possible.

At the end of October, this "First Light image" of the Pacman Nebula was acquired, 6 integrations of 1200s each using the H-Alpha filter. The telescope was temporarily set up in my back garden in Beilen, as soon as all tests are satisfactory the telescope will be relocated to the remote observatory in Germany.

NGC281 is an emission nebula in Cassiopeia at a distance of about 9500 light years, its apparent size is about that of the full moon.

For a full size image see: https://www.astrobin.com/full/axufwe/B/